Omit. The insertion of these words furnishes a subject for the agreement of the participle λέγων, which is irregular an construction. Literally the correct text reads, "there was given me a reed, saying." Accordingly Wordsworth refers the speech to the reed as an inspired medium of speech. Rev., better, and one said.

The reader may profitably consult on this point the lectures of Professor Milligan on the Revelation of St. John. He maintains that the conception of the Apocalypse is powerfully molded by John's recollections of the life of Jesus; that there is a close parallelism between the Apocalypse and the delineation of the life of Christ contained in the fourth Gospel; and that the Apocalypse is, in the deeper conceptions which pervade it, a repetition of the Gospel. See pp. 59-69.

They shall prophesy (προφητεύσουσιν)

See on prophet, Luk 7:26. Commonly explained of preaching repentance, though some take it in the later sense of foretelling future events.

Κιβωτὸς ark, meaning generally any wooden box or chest used of the ark in the tabernacle only here and Heb 9:4. Elsewhere of Noah's ark. See Mat 24:38; Luk 17:27; Heb 11:7; Pe1 3:20. For covenant, see note on testament, Mat 26:28. This is the last mention in scripture of the ark of the covenant. It was lost when the temple was destroyed by the Chaldeans (Kg2 25:10), and was wanting in the second temple. Tacitus says that Pompey "by right of conquest entered the temple. Thenceforward it became generally known that the habitation was empty and the sanctuary unoccupied do representation of the deity being found within it" ("History," v., 9). According to Jewish tradition Jeremiah had taken the ark and all that the Most Holy Place contained, and concealed them, before the destruction of the temple, in a cave at Mount Sinai, whence they are to be restored to the temple in the days of Messiah.

Lightnings and voices, etc.

"The solemn salvos, so to speak, of the artillery of heaven, with which each series of visions is concluded."